Goodbye Thailand, Goodbye November

Bangkok in 10 days, Chiang Mai in 7 days, and Koh Phi Phi in 5 days. Next thing we know it’s December already! Time flew quickly while we were in Thailand in the midst of sweating our faces off and getting used to the humidity. I’ve always had a soft spot for this beautiful country as its been a healing place for me during my initial visit a few years ago. In Bangkok, we partnered up with the Ruth Center to serve the community. Ruth Center is a non-profit organization, dedicated to supporting, loving, and sharing the Gospel with seniors in the surrounding communities. Currently, with 5 people in the team, the Ruth Center supports over 400 seniors, including many living in poverty. They also coordinate short-term/long-term missionaries, and volunteers looking to help out. I’ve had the privilege to connect with the organization a few years ago and it was a great opportunity working with the team again this time around.

In our brief time at the Ruth Center, we assisted in building a bathroom for one of the grandmas living in the slums, whose “house” was literally built on garbage and sewage. For someone who doesn’t have a regular source of income and receives just over 300 baht a month ($12 cad) for living expenses, the grandma still found a way to buy us bottled water and beverages during our time in her house. We were humbled and honored by the whole experience and we’re glad that we could finish building her bathroom in a week’s time.

Up north in the city of Chiang Mai, one of our highlights was the Loi Krathong and Yi Peng annual festival. Seeing thousands of lanterns being released into the sky was like witnessing a disney movie come to life (spoiler alert: anybody seen Tangled?). Every year, there are so many lanterns released that flights to and from Chiang Mai are rescheduled or cancelled during this 2-day festival. Thousands of people flock the streets lighting their lanterns, eagerly releasing them into the air. Thank God for humidity as there were no fires started despite several lanterns getting stuck and burning in the trees. If you can get past the hoards of people in the streets and a few burning lanterns falling from the sky from not being released properly, then you are in for a treat :)

Our last days in Thailand were spent in the private Laem Tong beach in Koh Phi Phi, looking over the emerald waters and hearing the waves crash into the shore. It was a perfect way to end our time in this beautiful country. Special thanks to our friends Jon, Ning, and Noi for assisting us with our stay in Thailand, for being our eyes and ears. Without you guys, we would have been lost somewhere in the streets of Bangkok as the street names are all written in fancy Thai alphabet.

As November ends and we prep for some family time in the Philippines over the holidays, we decided to make a brief stop in north Vietnam to the city of Hanoi. From our first day in the city, we can already tell that it was quite different from Thailand… we’ll see what more we can discover!